I'm director of content strategy at startup Exitround. I was previously a staff reporter at Forbes covering start-ups and venture capital. I'm interested in entrepreneurs who want to change the world, or have a point of view or compelling story. Email me at tgeron.news@gmail.com. I was previously a reporter for Dow Jones VentureWire where my work also appeared in the Wall Street Journal. I've also written for Red Herring, the Long Beach Press-Telegram and other outlets. In a former life I was a web developer. Follow me on Twitter tomiogeron, or Facebook , or Google+.

Just How Much Are Engineers In Demand? Very Much So

As any technology executive in Silicon Valley could tell you, hiring engineers is one of their toughest tasks these days.

A report from startup Identified shows just how in demand engineers are. People with engineering degrees on Identified have Identified scores that are 1.2 times those of liberal arts majors with equivalent work experience, meaning they are more sought after for jobs. But even in non-technical fields, people with engineering degrees are more sought after than liberal arts majors with the same years of work experience.

This difference increases with more years of experience. At five years of experience, those with engineering degrees in technical fields had a score of 68, compared with a 60 for engineers in non-technical fields and 51 for liberal arts majors.

How are the scores created? Identified scores combine people’s education, work experience and social network, as well as how often companies search for, view, contact or hire people with similar profiles. I recently wrote about Identified’s launch and how the company analyzes people to score people on a number from 1 to 100.

A number of tech executives and venture investors have gotten behind the Startup Visa idea, which would enable immigrant founders who create jobs through their new companies to stay in the U.S. That proposal, introduced in March, has not gotten through a divided Congress.

What’s behind the high demand for engineers? There’s an increasing demand both from tech companies and non-tech companies for highly-skilled engineers to create, build and maintain high quality systems at various levels from manufacturing to product design. Software is one major area of growth where engineers are needed in many companies.

But growth in engineering grads has not kept pace, Identified’s report shows. Many tech companies therefore hire engineers who have been educated overseas. The U.S. H1-B Visa program was designed to bring talented “speciality occupations” such as engineers into the U.S. However the number of H1-Bs issued peaked in 2001 with 161,000. That number dropped to 110,000 such visas in 2009.

Which tech companies most rely on foreign-educated engineers? Some of the biggest names in technology. Microsoft, Google, IBM, Accenture and Cisco, in descending order, have the most foreign educated engineers, according to data compiled on employment and education from people on Identified. Even companies like Facebook, which are relatively young, have a sizable number of engineers educated abroad. This list only takes into account people who are on Identified and have their employment and education information listed. (See the chart.) By percentage of total employees at the company, NVIDIA, Sun Microsystems, AMD, Amazon.com and Oracle have the most engineers. While the list may not be a big surprise to anyone who is in SIlicon Valley, it is eye-opening to see just how much top technology companies rely on engineers who hail from outside the U.S.

Identified is not making any political arguments, but there is a need for engineers one way or another. “Just looking at basic labor supply numbers, there’s clearly a shortage of engineers,” says Identified CEO Brendan Wallace. “There’s clearly a voracious demand. It’s reflected in the Identified scores.”

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

Comments

It appears this shortage is limited to only software and computer related engineers. My son is an aeronautical engineer who graduated Summa Cum Laude with a master’s degree and cannot find a job. One of his friends is also an aeronautical engineer and can’t find a job either.

Regarding the H1-B Visa program, it is another example of corporations driving down wages (except in their boardrooms).

Perhaps the difficulties in job prospects of aeronautical engineers is more of a long term problem as NASA and its suppliers die off from starvation. In addition, a PhD may be the standard for aero. eng. in the near future because of the level of sophistication required compete in the marketplace.

Prospective nuclear engineers would suffer the same fate in the job market if it weren’t for the dearth of interest in the subject these days.

I think the demand applies to all engineering and indeed any fields which are math/ science intensive.

The specific aeronautical field however has been on a downward trend for decades even without the recent NASA developments. The good news for newer Aeronautical grads is that their core skill-set is applicable to other disciplines and there exists a long-term growing need for their problem solving abilities.

Their skill set may be applicable, but they will still have a hard time getting past HR, whose recruiting criteria is archaic. An “aeronautical engineer” resume gets pigeonholed and not considered for other types of engineering jobs regardless of actual qualification.

The small number of page views and comments for this piece sort of say it all – it is not an issue, which also makes me wonder about this supposed ‘demand’ for engineers. Why didn’t the author report the real-dollar salaries for engineers over the last few decades? They are available in the IEEE Spectrum, which runs an annual survey.

If a shortage of engineers exists, focusing federal immigration policy on opening the borders to engineers is a subsidy, singling out one group for rewards (tech companies) while ‘sheltering’ another – engineers – from the market forces that would push their salaries up.

It would appear that in engineering, having a substantial long position in an appreciating asset (a tech education) is something that produces punishment by federal policy, which also guts the the demand side for engineering talent. It is no wonder Americans don’t become engineers. The ineptitude doesn’t end there, either – at the lower end of the labor market, which is swamped by illegal immigrants, there is an absence of federal policy and enforcement, subjecting lower-wage Americans to ferocious and illegal competition. Free trade is a two-way street, not an invocation for federal policy to disfavor US citizens.

I’m laughing at this article. You’re saying that there is an extreme abundance of engineering jobs? 60% of my mechanical engineering class of 2009 could not find those jobs or are not working in engineering. This “shortage” of engineers is a myth and is being used by corporations as an excuse to increase the number of H1B visa workers because they can take advantage of the cheap labor. There is always so much padding when they write articles about engineering being in demand.

Companies are also reluctant to hire fresh graduates because for them an “entry level” engineer level engineer must possess at least two years of engineering experience, not including internships experience. They simply don’t want to train new engineers anymore. This is the real issue – there is shortage of experienced engineer and that’s because they make it impossible to get an entry level position. If one conduct a search on monster, linkedin, careerbuilder, and on any other job posting sites for “entry level engineer position” not a lot of results show up.

I graduated with a GPA of 3.5 and have done 3 internships and now I am working as a Math Tutor making barely 10 dollars an hour. I didn’t just majored in engineering for the monetary rewards. I am passionate about the field and until now, three years after graduation, I am still struggling to get my first real engineering job. It gets worse the more that I am not doing engineering, since engineers are required to be current and one actually can’t prove that by just saying that he/she know the material. Hopefully things change, or I will be heading towards the exit or switch to other fields.

I’d suggest there’s no shortage of the software people either. Basically if you graduated after the 2000-2001 tech bust, you’ve most likely had your career destroyed by offshoring and outsourcing. A dirty little secret that isn’t told often in the media is that when firms went to re-staff after the big crash, they mostly staffed with foreign workers on the H-1B. Ignoring the hoardes of graduates of the late 1990s and early 2000s who studied engineering and computer science in record numbers to chase the high paying jobs in the sector.

Its rather disgusting, the Silicon Valley is barely recognizable and very few people under the age of 40 remaining there anymore.

The article is probably more focused on software / computer engineers, as someone mentioned previously. Experience plays a huge role as well.

I currently work in the tech consulting field and spent a good amount of time researching and thinking about the education to job journey issue. There are similar issues when people in consulting are trying to get on projects – a lot of it is about skills and experience. I think the education to job process is currently broken. I had similar issues in the beginning of my career after graduation. Once someone gains some “experience” (even if it is just “formal time being employed or contracted” even if the skills someone gains (and even if one does) are irrelevant, it still becomes much easier).

Regarding “engineering demand” I think the devil is in the details again: it all depends on what kind of engineer we are talking about, what exact roles / skills, etc. Some certain positions are in demand, some are not. The comment about experience makes a lot of sense as well. Lots of companies want candidates with at least some experience, and, most likely, the reason for that is that universities do not provide all of the skills needed in the market – latest technologies, tools, etc. For new engineers looking for work, it would probably help to understand the market better and see which engineers are in more demand and which specific skills employers are looking for; after that one could try to “fill the gaps” – find some good training and possibly build additional experience via internships / volunteering. It is also important to remember to “sprinkle” one’s resume with the buzzwords that recruiters are looking for using software. Also, quite many recruiters are pretty incompetent and do not know what really stands behind a job description and what a role really involves. That is why it is important to target resume for specific positions.

It would be really helpful for people looking for work (or choosing majors) to be able to see more data on all the different segments of engineering, along with real job descriptions and skills breakdown (I am actually working on a blog with some of that info – it is in progress, but will be called “novotalent” if anyone is interested). Also, McKinsey has lots of interesting content and videos on the topic in the Insights part of their site – there is Employment and Growth “theme” there – google it, if interested (and I am not part of Mckinsey, I actually work for a much less prestige but large company :)

I’m laughing at this article. You’re saying that there is an extreme abundance of engineering jobs? 60% of my mechanical engineering class of 2009 could not find those jobs or are not working in engineering. This “shortage” of engineers is a myth and is being used by corporations as an excuse to increase the number of H1B visa workers because they can take advantage of the cheap labor. There is always so much padding when they write articles about engineering being in demand.

Companies are also reluctant to hire fresh graduates because for them an “entry level” engineer level engineer must possess at least two years of engineering experience, not including internships experience. They simply don’t want to train new engineers anymore. This is the real issue – there is shortage of experienced engineer and that’s because they make it impossible to get an entry level position. If one conduct a search on monster, linkedin, careerbuilder, and on any other job posting sites for “entry level engineer position” not a lot of results show up.

I graduated with a GPA of 3.5 and have done 3 internships and now I am working as a Math Tutor making barely 10 dollars an hour. I didn’t just majored in engineering for the monetary rewards. I am passionate about the field and until now, three years after graduation, I am still struggling to get my first real engineering job. It gets worse the more that I am not doing engineering, since engineers are required to be current and one actually can’t prove that by just saying that he/she know the material. Hopefully things change, or I will be heading towards the exit or switch to other fields.

A 2002 Electrical Engineering/Computer Science graduate here, top quartile of my class, from a top-20 school. Have submitted my resume thousands of times to employers looking to hire, only to receive not even the courtesy of a response.

I don’t know why people would say that Computer/Electrical/Software Engineers are in any particular demand. Employers aren’t exactly lining up to give me or my peers jobs or even interviews. I can’t understand why firms are continually insinuating that they can’t find people when they have resume queues chock full of applicants they don’t even bother to contact.